Fifteen minutes of fame

D1T1: The Adventure of Mimsie the Mouse

Prompt: "I'm lost!"

It was a very gray morning when Mimsie woke up to the sound of thunder. Shrieking loudly, she nudged her husband Shylock awake. Squeaking with a growl, Shylock woke up and asked her what the matter was.

She walked up to the window of their terranium (a house for a mouse, naturally!) and parted the curtains. It was raining torrentially and the ground above them seemed to be flooding rapidly. She raised her eyebrows and pointed the dismal scene to Shylock.

Shylock ambled to the window in the roof and let out a burp.

"Too much of that drink from the old shoe, methinks," he said to Mimsie and looked out through the glass.

"Hmmm ... do you think it is time to call the Emergency Service?" he asked his beloved.

Mimsie had, meanwhile, already gone to the other side of the bed where their children Tiny and Mohawk were asleep. Checking them and feeling comforted to see that they were sleeping soundly, she re-arranged the blanket over their small bodies and came back to where Shylock stood.

She snuggled up to him and said in a dreamy voice, "Do you think we should?"

Shylock thought about this for a moment, watching the rain continuing to beat down from the dark sky above. He shook his head and grunted, "No, perhaps not right now, but if this keeps up for another few hours ..."

Just then, there was a big flash of lightning and a crack of thunder louder than they had ever heard before. Both the mice-kids jumped out of their beds, shouting "mummy!" almost in unison. Mohawk's pajamas slipped down his shanks, while Tiny looked so scared she ran and jumped into her mother's long dress.

"W... what happened, Mom?" Mohawk said in an almost-whisper as he hurriedly drew up his pajamas and began to tie the strings with a nervous shiver in his hands.

"Nothing, my dear, it's only the Gods moving their furniture," said Mimsie as she went back on to the bed, Tiny still clutching to the inside of her dress. She gathered Mohawk up into her arms. Wasn't he the cute one, she thought, with his hair all shorn into a single straight line down the centre of his head? Inwardly, she grinned as she began to soothe the nerves of both the children.

Shylock, seeing as how Mimsie was going to be busy comforting the children, walked to the kitchen and began to make tea while whistling a nursery rhyme tune. In between working to make a nice hot brew, he stole glances at his family, and at Tiny in particular.

Although dark like the rest of her race, Tiny had well-chiselled features that made her shine out amongst her peers at school. Presently, he realised that the tea was done. He laid out two cups from the cupboard and poured out the tea into them.

Handing one of the cups to Mimsie, Shylock sat down next to his family and began to sip tea from his cup.

While they were still wondering what to do, a different kind of noise shattered the background of noises coming in from the window.

"It's the siren ... can you hear it, Daddy?" said Mohawk. Each one of them heard it. Shylock remembered that this kind of siren had sounded just once before ... over two years ago, when there had been a major catastrophe - an earthquake, no less.

Both Shylock and Mimsie ran to the door and opened it to see other mice emerging from their terraniums.

Shylock spoke to Darmy, the most respected and senior mouse in the neighbourhood.

"What is the matter?" he asked in a low voice.

Darmy looked at him with anguish and shook his head as a trickle of sweat ran down his nose and dripped off his whiskers.

"It seems to be a terrible thing, Shy," he said as he sniffed and followed Shylock back into the latter's house.

"Why, what is happening?" asked Mimsie, as she observed the same panicky look on almost every mouse's face.

"We have to vacate our terranium society completely within the next half an hour, as, otherwise, we shall all be drowned!" said Darmy, and made as if to move on.

"Wait, please, don't go yet," said Mimsie as she moved in front of the learned, senior
member of their clan and attempted to block his departure. Darmy stopped and almost collided into her.

"Egad ... what may you be ..." he uttered an oath under his breath and sank back into a proffered chair with a sigh.

"What is happening?" repeated Mimsie, all ears now, her whiskers quivering with a mix of fear and anticipation of an adventure.

"The terranium will sink as sure as the sun rises everyday. We have under an hour left," said Darmy in a dejected voice. He squeaked ineffectively as a huge sneeze overrode his tiny voice.

"I'd better be going or the wife will scream at me," he added and got off the chair. He mumbled a "goom-bye" and left.

"It's time to leave then," said Mimsie as she began to gather their belongings into a much-used suitcase. Shylock looked at her with disbelief as he realised that the world they had known and stayed in comfortably for over three years was now under siege ... and they would perhaps never see it again in their lives. Already, old age was catching up with him, while Mimsie, at least six months younger than him, still had a lot of energy to run around. The children were barely three months old, but would rough it out easily as their blood was still hot and their joints and brain, agile and willing.

The clamour to leave the terranium society reached its zenith just as water began to seep in through the walls into their home. Tears flowed down three pairs of cheeks (Mimsie was ever the practical mouse, a non-confirmist) as the family took one last look at their home and bolted out. The commotion outside was terrible, with mice in all shades and sizes running helter-skelter, bags and bundles in their hands and over their heads.

The exit to the outside world was atop a flight of stairs built by humans that had built their homes above the mouse-complex. The mice emerged, one after another, some hobbling, others jumping with nervousness and still more running haphazardly, not knowing where to go and if where they were going was a safe location.

Shylock was telling Mohawk and Tiny about the unpredictable nature of humans as Mimsie struggled with the load on her head and the bag in her hands.

"Can't you see that I can barely walk with this load?" she shouted at Shylock.

The dutiful husband ran to her side and took the huge bundle from her head and shoulders immediately. The children looked at their parents with part awe and part happiness.

"Aren't we lucky to have such happy mom and dad?" asked Mohawk as Tiny nodded once before letting off a powerful sneeze.

In the next instant, something dreadful happened: a crowd of mice emerged from the exit of the terranium and rushed across to wherever they wanted to go. In the process, Mohawk lost his grip on Tiny, Tiny lost her grip on Shylock and the family was swept off the stairs and into the slush that surrounded the base of the stairs.

"Mummy!" screamed Tiny.
"Daddy!" shouted an equally distraught Mohawk.
The swirling waters took Tiny away from Mohawk and the rest of her family and across the road into the crook of a roadside elm where she hit the bark inside a natural hole and passed out.

Mohawk was carried away too, but managed to cling on to a floating branch of a tree and swam with it till the branch got caught in some human garbage pile. He looked around and saw that while the pile itself lay among a rush of dirty water, it stood high and its top was far off from the flooding waters (in mice distances, of course!) He loosened his grip from the branch and scurried up the pile till he found a broken container with a wide mouth. He looked inside it and saw that it had water too, but also a small niche that was dry and which was the inside of the handle of the container. Warily, he descended the inside of the container and jumped into the dry niche to await whatever came next. His last thought before he slept was "I am lost!"

Shylock and Mimsie held on to each other, searching frantically for their children.

"Tiny!" "Mohawk!" they shouted one after another, then together, for as long as their throats permitted them. The sounds of their shouting barely rose above the noise of the pattering rain, however, and they stopped after a while, their breaths short and their tongues dry. They had managed to climb back up a couple of stairs and now stood under an overhang formed by the stairs above, out of the fury of the rain, and yet shivering with the cold and the wet fear that had reached their hearts.

Weeping for their children, their gaze fell upon the windows that looked out from the terranium roofs below where they stood. They could just see their own house, now almost completely filled with water.

"Oooh!" said Mimsie, as she pointed out the sorry event to Shylock.

"Our house! It's all gone," said Shylock, as he clung on to his wife and wept.

After what seemed like an hour or so, the rain let up and the sun peeked out from behind the clouds. Shylock and Mimsie tumbled down the stairs and trudged through the slush and the mud till they were out on the flange of the road. Vehicles of various sizes had re-emerged on the road and were now navigating slowly through the water, the drivers looking sad and grim as they drove slowly, careful to avoid unseen obstacles and slippery bottoms.

"They must have gone across to the other side," said Shylock, who was quietly studying the path the waters were taking as they slowly ebbed. Mimsie saw what he had seen and couldn't agree more. The main task was to first get on to the other side. It seemed to be a task they would not be able to do as there was no signal for traffic to stop or slow down at this point. They decided to walk some distance down their side and look for a gap in the traffic. Sure enough, about 50 yards down the line, there was a sort of cross-roads, and the traffic did seem to be stopping after every few minutes. They jumped at the first opportunity and got over to the other side. They began their search patiently and meticulously, especially looking under pieces of trash furniture, empty containers, mounds of garbage, and mercifully, inside the trunks of roadside trees.

Tiny was located within a matter of thirty minutes, while Mohawk was found after nearly two hours. The happy family was reunited with each other. Their bags and worldly possessions had got swept away with the rain and the flood waters. Empty handed, but full of love for the benevolence bestowed upon them by the Almighty, Mimsie hugged her husband and her children and taking their tiny fingers in her palms, she strode on, towards the promise of a better and more secure home for them all.

A make-shift hole was found eventually, and there we shall leave our tiny family to share their own private happiness with each other. Don't you think we should leave them alone too?

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Judge EArl's comment: D1T1 - I've read this before and I am thrilled to read it again. The prompt is well carried out. A must read story.
Earl


- ## Dr.Taher ##